Online Marketing 101

The term online marketing comes with a large spectrum of components, from extremely tech-savvy bits and pieces to knowing the ins and outs of the social media world, but for now, let’s take a look at the very basic parts of marketing a website online.

The world today is filled with people who spend a vast amount of their time looking for information and products on the internet. If you are not following (at least) these few basics, you are missing out on putting yourself/your business in front of the right, and willing-to-spend-money, audience.

Often business owners get overwhelmed or confused on what they should be doing in respect to their digital marketing. However, the purpose of using the internet for marketing is to do one or more of the following things:

Get your name and company’s message in front of the right people. This will showcase what you want people to know about your business, products, and services.

Research your potential customers. Gather information that lets you market to the right demographic, preferences, and needs.

Make sales. This one is pretty straightforward and should be the goal of all marketing, right?

Website Details

The most important part of online marketing is your website (obviously). How your website interacts with visitors is critical to your success. This starts the moment you choose your domain name. Don’t get fancy or complicated with it. Try to steer clear of using numbers or characters. You want your customers to easily find and remember your site.

When you have a website that acts as more than just a brochure, you build relationships with your customers. Your target market will appreciate receiving information about your business and industry, whether that is through relevant and intriguing content like blogs and videos or podcasts and webinars. These can all connect them to your website and give them a reason to return.

Having a professional and easy-to-navigate website allows your customers to get from point A (finding your site for a specific purpose) to point B (purchasing your products or services). People gravitate towards websites that are clean, informational, and simple to use.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most businesses that are putting forth marketing efforts with their website, and want to be found in the internet world, will need to employ professionals who know how to help with the SEO basics.

At the bare minimum you should be conscience of your content. Websites that naturally include keywords, that people would use to find your products and services, will see better results from their online marketing strategies. Professional companies are, well… just that: professional. They know how, when, and what kind of keywords need to be used, how often, and why.

Search engine optimization is a bare minimum part of online marketing that should be looked at as part of building your businesses success.

Social Media Platforms

This one can be a tricky basic. There are marketers out there that swear by the notion that your business needs to be heard on each and every social platform.

This is not entirely true.

A business may be able to reach a vast audience through perfectly timed Tweets, but may not have the same impact on Instagram. The same goes for Google+ and Facebook accounts.

However, even though social media platforms can open doors to the right audience, without using them properly, they can have the opposite effect. A well thought out and informational post can find itself in an internet black hole if you don’t know how to market the content and when to post it. Knowing when, how, and why a post can intrigue an audience is a big part of social media. And when you master those few guidelines, social media can be your marketing best friend.

Once you have mastered these basic online marketing skills and tools you will start to see an increase in not only the amount of visitors to your site, but they will be the right kind of visitors. Your online strategies will bring people to your site because they are specifically looking for your products and services.